


New Year

by extree



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:59:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extree/pseuds/extree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Gold's New Year's Eve is very lonely, until the doorbell rings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Year

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Klairabelle](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Klairabelle).



> I just wrote a quick little oneshot for [Klairabelle](http://www.klairabelle.tumblr.com). It's just a tiny little random undefined AU scene that I hope might help with the New Year's Eve blues. Happy New Year, friend. :)

It was a few minutes to midnight when his doorbell rang and shattered the calm. Gold looked up from his book for a second and a half, which was precisely the time it took him to decide that whoever it was was either drunk, or lost, or trying to be amusing, and not worth the bother. But then not twenty seconds later, it rang again, and _again_ after a page and a half of reading but not really reading at all. Gold slammed his book down on the coffee table and hoisted himself up from his chair muttering curses under his breath. Was he really going to have to threaten someone with his cane tonight? He put on his fiercest scowl and jerked the door open. He blinked against the sudden rush of cold winter air, saw nothing, then looked a little lower, and lo and behold -

“Hiya!”

It was the little town librarian, all bundled up in a warm coat and a beanie with flushed cheeks and a smile, and his scowl fell from his face in an instant. He’d never actually seen her outside of her library before, and God, there wasn’t much of her, was there? It hadn’t been that obvious in the library whenever he visited; he’d only ever seen her sitting behind her desk or standing on a ladder, really.

She was very pretty.

But what on earth was she doing here?

“Yes?”

Her mouth fell open, but no sound came out for a moment. She glanced at her watch, then gave him another smile and repeated, “Yeah, hiya!”

"Yes, you said that,” he muttered, frowning. Was she drunk? Ill? He looked over her shoulder to see if there was a group of her giggling, whispering peers waiting for her return, just in case this was a slightly more intricate knock-and-run, although she did seem a little too old for that. But there was no-one there. No-one at all. Just her, at his door.

“Are you alone?”

As per usual. He didn’t see why New Year’s Eve should be any different. All he needed was a decent book, and a random TV channel on in the background. Not because he was lonely and the noise made it sting less, honestly, but because he just read much faster that way. That was all. Truly. He never read well in complete and utter silence. But that was none of her business, now, was it? So Gold frowned and jerked his head back, and with a derisive tone to his voice asked the lost little librarian, “Are you going to hit me over the head with a dictionary and rob my house if I say yes?”

“Mr Gold. Are you alone?” she repeated. Her deeper voice surprised him so much he actually wiped the frown off his face and nodded meekly. Suddenly that strange smile of hers was back, and bigger than ever. “Okay then,” she said, and she began to bounce on her heels, her hands behind her back.

So she knew his name, did she? If his reputation preceded him, why exactly did she think it was a wise idea to come and confound him in the middle of the night? He narrowed his eyes at her, fully expecting her to finally explain her presence there on his doorstep just a few moments before midnight, but that wasn’t her plan, it seemed. Not a word. She just stood there, looking at the plants in his front yard with mild interest as if she was considering buying the place. It was almost midnight, and she was just _standing_ there. What was wrong with this creature?

“Do you need help?” he tried.

She crinkled her nose and checked her watch again. “Um, yeah. I guess. In a bit.”

“I’m going to close the door _‘in a bit’_ , dearie,” he growled, folding his arms over his chest.

She didn’t even look up from her watch; just nodded and licked her lips and murmured an absent, “Yeah yeah.”

“You're drunk,” he sighed, stepping back and fully intending to push the door shut in her pretty face. “Go home."

That seemed to snap her out of it. Whatever ‘it’ was. “No no no!” she cried, leaping forward to grab his doorframe so he couldn’t (well, wouldn’t) shut the door. “Hold on! I’m not drunk!”

Gold sighed and relented. He wasn’t going to crush a woman’s hand in his front door on New Year’s Eve, for heaven’s sake, even if his house was getting colder by the second, and he increasingly more annoyed. He let go of his door and let her push it open again, and she was practically inside, now. “Just a few more seconds!” she pleaded, looking up at him with pouting lips and big, sad eyes. “Please? Promise it’ll make sense.”

Whatever it was, it seemed important. Those unearthly blue eyes of hers were dangerously compelling, even in the dark. She had her lip in between her teeth, and her eyebrows were knitted close together, and that was so incredibly unfair of her. Who could resist a look like that? Well. The man he had made himself out to be in this town, that’s who. So he tilted his chin just a little bit to make himself even taller than her, then sternly told her, “I won’t stand here a second longer unless you explain to me why you -”

He swallowed the rest of his sentence, because he heard cheering in the distance, and then the world exploded around them, and everything was loud bangs, flashing lights and sulfur. Ms French didn’t seem fazed in the slightest. The sky lit up a bright pink and gold behind her, and then green, and then blue, and then suddenly he was being kissed.

_Kissed._

She was kissing him. He was being kissed, and his ears were ringing, and her hands were cold against his neck, and her lips were soft and wet, and was he having some sort of seizure? She pulled away and let her arms drop to her sides, her face gone completely red. She seemed to be waiting for something. A reaction, perhaps, but how could he give her one when he didn’t even fully understand what had happened?

“You promised it would make sense,” he murmured.

For a second, Gold wondered if she’d even heard him over the fireworks, but then she grabbed his face, pulled his head down and stopped his heart in his chest when she kissed him _again_. What on earth was happening? When she broke the kiss that time, their lips made a wet sound, and she was already grinning again. “How about now?” she asked, stroking his cheek with her ice cold thumb.

“L-Look, I’m not trying to get you to kiss me again,” he said softly, quite unable to tear his eyes away from hers, “even though that was lovely. B-Both times. If a little presumptuous. But… it still doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The woman gave him an understanding nod and bloody _pinched his cheek_ , for heaven’s sake! “Well,” she sighed with a shrug. “Then I guess you’ll just have to come by the library at closing time some time this week, and I’ll try again.”

“Wh- Oh. Really?”

She wasn’t through kissing him? When she pulled her cold little hands back, he had to stop himself from following. “Next time you’re at the library, we’ll talk,” she teased, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a playfully lopsided smile, “not just _gaze_.”

Fuck. She’d noticed.

“Happy New Year, Mr Gold,” she said, walking backwards slowly, giving him a cute little parting wave.

“Yeah. Yeah, same,” he croaked, wondering if his heart was going to stop racing any time soon. “Same to you.”

Gold watched her until she turned the corner and disappeared. The sky was still full of color and noise, and he only noticed that his jaw had dropped when a sudden gust of December - no, January wind chilled his tongue. Back inside, he caught his own daft smile and stupid rosy cheeks in the hallway mirror on his way to the basement for a bottle of champagne.

It was New Year, after all.


End file.
